Christmas 2013

In my usual manor, I’m finishing this entry up a month after the actual date, but that’s how I do .

Dina, Briana, Javi and the kids got to come down for the holiday . There was a lot of laughing and running around, since Jorge and I had to share the kids with the other parents, like we usually do on holidays.

On Christmas Eve, we visited Gramma and took her her gifts :).

The girls and I visited Rosie and Michelle for a few minutes that evening. The girls had a blast with Sheeba, Rosie’s 4th baby, heh, and looking at their Christmas decorations. They go all out!

The kiddos all played with their cousins and Javi, Briana, Dina, Mom, Jorge and I sat around and opened our gifts from them. I wanted to wait till Christmas, but Javi said, “You’re adults, you don’t have to wait till freakin’ Christmas!”

Javi and Mia brought Ruffles some presents, too. Little toys with bells and a standing thing with a ball and feathers; he had a blast!

They brought us an awesome candle holder centerpiece for the table and 3 bottles of Moscato d’asti! I love my family, they know us too well!

We woke up early on Christmas morning and Jorge went to pick his boys up. They got back and then commenced the ripping open of packages and squeals from the kids. I feel so blessed and great inside that, er, Santa, got to make all their wishes come true. (This is around the time that Jorge would say the fat man gets all the credit .

Javi helped Emily put her Doc McStuffins Check-up Center together. That thing was the bain of Santa’s existence for the month of December .

Eenan, who asked for an old-school Gameboy, was–I think–pleased with his special edition Pikachu Game Boy and 4 games that came with it. Too bad one of them doesn’t save the progress, grr. Eenan hung out in their room while the other boys played a game of Monopoly while their new Xbox downloaded who knows what. This was their expression:

Alaethia opened every package she could find and when everything was nice and strewn all over their bedroom, we put their newest Barbie beach house together. She messed around with her new 2DS and then she, Emily and Mia played Barbie’s and Doc McStuffins together. Julien played with his toys for a while and got so tired he passed out. It didn’t help that the poor thing had a stomach virus. He arrived needing to throw up . That poor baby is sick from some ailment every weekend he visits, and when they don’t allow him to come, it’s because he’s got a brand-new virus of some sort. Anyway. I digress.

We hung around the rest of the day, enjoying the kids and our family :). We got mom a new TV that we got an INSANE deal on, but we aren’t sure if it’s a pro or a con, since I have a hard enough time getting her to do her chores as it is. I’m beginning to realize that what people say is true: as you and your parents get older, you switch roles .

Dina, Javi, Bri and the kids visited more family and then my kids were going to be picked up by their dad and would be back the next day. We took a few photos before they left. Don’t mind my make-up-less face and wild mane .

My loves were picked up and Dina, Javi, Bri and the kids came back. With a huge tray of cookies from Tony and Noni. I had these awesome little moon-shaped, powdered sugary cookies and I vowed to find a recipe on Pinterest and make them!

John, his girlfriend and her little girl came over for a while. It was the first time we’d met them even though they’ve been together a while. I was in the middle of making a crescent-wrapped brie when they arrived. I’d found the original recipe on Pinterest, but the link has since been turned into a spam-link so I winged it. Javi and Jorge brought back the peach jam I asked for, but brought garlic-flavored crescents back. I wasn’t sure how it was going to taste, but it was a huge hit!

John and his girlfriend and her baby left and I joined the rest of the family on the porch. We ate brie and had wine and just chit-chatted about everything, good and bad. I love when we just start talking about the past, the present, future, everything!

We went out to the driveway for a while so Julien could ride his new bike :).

We came inside and we sat around the table, on Facebook and watching TV. Javi and I scrolled through our newsfeed and saw some cute/cheesy/hilarious Christmas Family Photos. So we decided that every year from here on out, we were going to have our own Super Happy Family Fun Time Photo. And here it is:

We had actually taken several, one of them a super-hilariously cheesy one where we each had our hand on the person in front of us’ shoulder, very 1980’s, but Briana didn’t like how she came out and I didn’t like how I came out so we scratched that one LOL. We decided that next year, we were somehow going to find footie pajamas for everyone, with stockings in the background and a Christmas movie playing in the background, much like this one. Someone had a photo like that on Facebook this year and we decided we’re going to ONE-UP THEM.

We had such a great time and I feel so blessed that we could spend it together .